Asia

Global Counsel’s work in Asia focuses on cross-border trade and investment issues between Asia and Europe. From the inception of the business, we have worked with Asian companies going global and with multinationals seeking to take advantage of the dynamic growth of Asia’s markets.

Drawing on the resources of our office in Singapore as well as the team in London, we have supported Asian corporates and investors to address market access challenges and to realise investment opportunities in Europe, and European and American multinationals to develop strategies in line with the political and policy realities in Asia. We work on long-term policy and reputational challenges, politically-driven events and on specific transactions.

Analysis & Blogs

During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the UK yesterday, he and Theresa May were asked about the fate of Hitachi’s Horizon nuclear plant at Wylfa in Wales. Abe’s response, that they did not discuss it, did nothing to reduce anxiety about the multi-billion-pound project.

Election season has begun in Indonesia. Presidential and parliamentary elections will be held simultaneously on April 17th, 2019, where approximately 187m Indonesians (out of approximately 265m) will be eligible to vote.

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For a very powerful head of a huge and centrally controlled nation, President Xi Jinping of China has a remarkably relaxed air about him. He exudes composure, in public at least. In a receiving room of the Great Hall of the People, Xi welcomed a small UK group which I joined this week to commemorate the anniversary of the Icebreakers – strictly speaking post-revolutionary sanction breakers – a mission of business people who took Britain’s first trade mission to China in 1953.

The Trump administration’s revamped NAFTA (or USMCA, as we are being invited to call it) landed this week after a year or so of fraught negotiations with Mexico and Canada. If we discount the amendments to KORUS (The United States–Korea Free Trade Agreement) prompted by the US’s steel and aluminium tariffs earlier this year, it is the Trump administration’s first major trade agreement. It is certainly more than just a rebrand.

In a new joint report, Carlos Gutierrez, Co-Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, and Peter Mandelson, Chair of Global Counsel, warn business leaders that in the current crisis in the international trading system, companies and investors will need to develop new tools to safely navigate and...

US trade policy under Donald Trump has become volatile, noisy and aggressive. This makes it hard to follow policy developments, let alone to understand what is driving them. But the key to understanding the dispute with China is to recognise it is quite different from the disputes the US has provoked with other countries.

US President Trump upped the ante in his trade dispute with China earlier this week by mandating his US Trade Representative to release a list of up to $200bn in Chinese goods on which a new 10% tariff would apply by the end of the summer.

Last week, UK prime minister, Theresa May, met with the CEO of Hitachi, Hiroaki Nakanishi, to discuss how to finance the new Horizon nuclear plant at Wylfa in Anglesey. The meeting went under the radar at the time, but what has become clear is that Hitachi and Japan are confronting the UK with a political and policy dilemma.

Time is running out for the Iran nuclear deal. Trump’s self-imposed 12 May deadline, by which he wants to decide whether to continue waving sanctions lifted under the nuclear agreement, is just a week away. It appears increasingly unlikely that European proposals will prevent Trump from re-imposing sanctions.

As US-China trade hostilities slowly unfold, the EU is currently watching from the sidelines — mostly silently. But impacts in Europe are possible in the coming months, if only because US-China trade flows do not operate in isolation.

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The Trump administration’s threat of 25% tariffs on $50bn of Chinese imports to the United States has inevitably dominated coverage of the President’s decision to escalate a long-standing irritation with Chinese approaches to US inward investment into a full-blown trade dispute.

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Was it a rehash of old announcements or concessions that could prevent a trade war? These starkly different verdicts have been offered on President Xi’s plans to liberalise the Chinese economy, set out at the Boao forum this week. Was it a rehash of old announcements or concessions that could prevent a trade war? These starkly different verdicts have been offered on President Xi’s plans to liberalise the Chinese economy, set out at the Boao forum this week.

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At the China Entrepreneurs Conference in Yabuli last week (see my previous blog for reflections), the theme was 40 years of reform and opening up of China’s economy. Earlier in the week, news seeped out that China’s two-term leadership rule was about to be scrapped, allowing Xi Jinping to stay in power beyond 2023. Commentary flooded the international media, but participants at Yabuli were strangely silent on the issue. This led me to think about the role that political leadership has played in the transformation of China over the last 40 years, and what the Chinese think of their current leader.

Most Davos regulars will not know of the town of Yabuli, a remote town in northern China closer to Vladivostok than Beijing. But, having spent much of last week trekking to and from Yabuli, I have realised both towns have something in common. I was there to attend the annual China Entrepreneurs Forum (think the World Economic Forum but with no politicians or NGOs). Yabuli has less of the old-world charm of the Swiss Alps, it is located in the province of Heilongjiang (think industrial rust-belt rather than cuckoo clocks) but both are high-end ski resorts, a long drive from the nearest airport and both events are full of rather self-congratulatory chatter.

Recent years have seen important global shifts in both the policy frameworks for screening inward foreign investment and the way in which they are applied. These shifts come against a backdrop of protectionist political rhetoric and anxieties about the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI)...

Inequalities are increasing amongst people in Europe and the US; this is having a profound impact on politics, creating resentments and instability; and this is impacting the way in which policymakers see China. It is putting trade and investment relations with China under closer scrutiny. This...

Over Summer 2017, EY and Global Counsel collaborated on a project reviewing the challenges posed for UK boards and managers by political populism. EY have just published some of these reflections as part of their regular Corporate Governance Latest Insights Series.
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In New Delhi last week, I joined business and political leaders considering the prospects for the digital sectors in India and Europe. The differences and the similarities, in the outlook and the issues being confronted by policymakers in each market, are equally striking.

Earlier this month, the German cabinet adopted a directive expanding the scope of the German state’s ability to investigate foreign acquisitions in a wide range of critical infrastructure and the IT services that support it. In parallel, Berlin has led an advocacy campaign at the EU level over...

It is now expected that the EU and Japan will use this week’s G20 summit to announce a political agreement on an FTA between the two sides after four years of negotiating. This is certainly big news in the generally calm waters of global trade negotiations.

Whatever gets discussed at Mar-a-Lago between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, it probably won’t include climate change. Trump has just ripped up Obama’s Clean Power Plan and approved Keystone XL. Xi is positioning China as the new global leader in climate change.

If you want to understand the state of the EU-China economic relationship, then reading the analysis of China’s Manufacturing 2025 strategy by the European Chamber of Commerce in China is a great place to start. It does not bother with the usual, dry statistical analysis of export growth rates and bilateral deficits.

The race for the governorship of Jakarta is almost over. The leadership of the capital is arguably the biggest job under the President and a platform for national leadership, and this race is setting the tone for national politics in important ways, so it is worth watching closely.

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Last week Dyson announced the opening of a new £330 million R&D centre in Singapore. The focus of the centre, home to Dyson’s new Global Technology Centre of Excellence, is on commercialising Dyson’s technology for global markets, including, for example, for use in smart homes.

Belma is Head of Delivery. At Global Counsel, Belma works closely with the senior team to oversee client and research workflow, along with the identification, tracking and development of business development efforts.

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